Hot topic for cube dwellers … how to prepare financially to start your own biz

This week on the radio show, I am interviewing Lynnette Khalfani, a former Wall St. Journal reporter for CNBC, on the topic of preparing financially for the move from employee to entrepreneur. She has written a number of successful books including Zero Debt, The Money Coach’s Guide to Your First Million, and her new one, Zero Debt for College Grads (for those of you in your 20s, 30s or 40s, who are still paying off student loans). She also recently appeared on Oprah, so decided that the next logical step was to appear on my radio show. (Hah! A girl can dream. Honestly, she is a very nice and down to earth person, and I feel very lucky that she agreed to appear on the show.)

I know that this is a HOT topic for a lot of cube dwellers who really worry about how to self-fund benefits, plan for cash flow, decide how much personal debt is appropriate to bring into self-employment, and a whole host of other concerns.

I am writing the interview questions right now (yes, I script the shows the day before … keeps things fresh, and frankly, I am worthless without a real deadline). I would LOVE to get some of your specific questions and concerns for Lynnette so that we can address them on the show tomorrow. Leave the questions here in the comments, or send me an email to pcs (at) ganas (dot) com. Please put “Questions for Lynnette” as the subject line.

If you miss the live show, you can always listen later, through the link above. To download as an Mp3, you will have to click on the title of the show, which will bring up the “download as Mp3″ option.

11 Responses to “Hot topic for cube dwellers … how to prepare financially to start your own biz”

Hi Everyone,
I have a carpet cleaning business in Houston,TX that was doing pretty good until the economy went bad, and with it my clientele. I have a website for the business but I dont
know what I have to do the get it to show up in a search. Right now it’s somewhere in the yahoo/google netherworld (LOL).

Is there someone on here that can give me some insight or know of anyone that coud give me insight on how I can get my local website on the front
page of a Yahoo or Google search to increase my business without it costing me 5 or 10k $$$? If so please share with me.

Corporate finance is an area of finance dealing with the financial decisions corporations make and the tools and analysis used to make these decisions. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize corporate value while reducing the firm’s financial risks. Although it is in principle different from managerial finance which studies the financial decisions of all firms, rather than corporations alone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms.

The discipline can be divided into long-term and short-term decisions and techniques. Capital investment decisions are long-term choices about which projects receive investment, whether to finance that investment with equity or debt, and when or whether to pay dividends to shareholders. On the other hand, the short term decisions can be grouped under the heading “Working capital management”. This subject deals with the short-term balance of current assets and current liabilities; the focus here is on managing cash, inventories, and short-term borrowing and lending (such as the terms on credit extended to customers).

The terms Corporate finance and Corporate financier are also associated with investment banking. The typical role of an investment banker is to evaluate investment projects for a bank to make investment decisions.

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I havent touched on the self-employed and owning your own business angle in my Career Money series yet, but it is a topic near and dear to my heart. Thats why I was so excited to listen in to Pam Slims Escape from Cubicle N…

Graydon, it’s funny. I just read your comment on benefits and wanted to share with you (and all readers out there) that I posted yesterday on my blog (www.oncardblog.com) talking about healthcare issues, costs and resources for new entrepreneurs. You should check it out. It might be helpful…

I know this is going to be a very helpful interview for all of us. My biggest question is how much money do you need to have in the bank to tide you over while you grow your business?? I know this depends on how many people you’re supporting and what type of business. But a ball-park answer would be helpful to give us an idea of how much cash is typically needed to get through the lean-years. This obviously doesn’t include any start-up investment in the venture… Thanks.

I think this is the show you’ve been telling me is coming… (and I’ve waited for).

I’ll be blunt… I need a resource that can give me actual costs (mine as an entrepreneur) for all of the various benefits that I’ve gotten used to “growing up” in the corporate world.

I don’t expect anybody to answer the question of “how much should I pay for insurance for my xyz biz”.. I just want someone to say “hey, this book, place, site, company has some great info about that and you should be able to get an estimate from there”.